Gifts for the Discerning Theater Fan

Simon McBurney in his one-man show “The Encounter,” at the Golden Theater.CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

For the loved one who never seems to listen. Simon McBurney’s hypnotic, sui generis performance piece — which recreates an American photographer’s numinous visit to the Amazon River Basin — hooks its audience by the ears. Using layers of voices and sounds, delivered via the headsets attached to each seat, this production has you hearing as you’ve never heard before.

A crash course in what it means to be a New Yorker (well, of a certain age and a certain neighborhood) and, hands down, the funniest show in town. The peerless comics Nick Kroll and John Mulaney morph into two dirty old Upper West Siders named Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland, and, heaven help us, they’ve decided to put on a show.

BEN BRANTLEY

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Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh in “The Present,” an adaptation of Chekhov’s “Platonov.”CreditTony Cenicola/The New York Times

Anyone with a taste for daredevil acting should never miss a performance by Cate Blanchett, a two-time Oscar winner whose stage performances in “Uncle Vanya” and “A Streetcar Named Desire” are among the bravest and most brilliant in recent memory. Here she is joined by her “Vanya” co-star Richard Roxburgh in the Sydney Theater Company’s adaptation of Chekhov’s “Platonov.”

This winter, the place to be is Pittsburgh. No one summons the brusque, energizing symphony that was the Hill District neighborhood of that city as August Wilson does in this 1979 group portrait of a gypsy cab company (long before Uber). This is the work in which Mr. Wilson said he discovered his voice as a playwright, and how it soars. Ruben Santiago-Hudson, a longtime Wilson interpreter, directs.

Female characters speak only a small percentage of the many ravishing words in Shakespeare, but the director Phyllida Lloyd is doing her best to correct that imbalance. On the fleet heels of her stirring all-female versions of “Julius Caesar” and “Henry IV” comes this interpretation of Shakespeare’s valedictory romance. The great Harriet Walter, who was a Brutus and a Henry to remember, dons the sorcerer’s mantle of Prospero in this Donmar Warehouse production.

BEN BRANTLEY

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The 26-track cast recording of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s musical, “She Loves Me.”CreditTony Cenicola/The New York Times

Laura Benanti’s pearly version of “Vanilla Ice Cream” is just one of many highlights on this lush 26-track cast recording of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s effervescent comic romance. By the time this Roundabout Theater Company revival floated onto Broadway, Ms. Benanti had established herself as an old-school star; it’s Zachary Levi, her leading man, who proved a surprise in his portrayal of her roguish co-worker and secret love. As the ear worm of an opening number insists, “Good morning, good day.” Indeed.

SCOTT HELLER

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The cast album of the David Bowie-Enda Walsh musical, “Lazarus.”CreditTony Cenicola/The New York Times

A Bowie album without Bowie? Yes and no. The New York Theater Workshop’s Off Broadway production of this David Bowie-Enda Walsh musical was a loose sequel to the singer’s 1976 movie, “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” and filled with selections from his songbook. In this original cast recording, Michael C. Hall’s impassioned singing eerily evokes Bowie’s own, and the story — of an isolated figure preparing to let go of life — echoes Bowie’s hidden illness. (The album was recorded the morning the show’s cast learned of his death from cancer.) The best material is late- and least-familiar Bowie — the title song, “When I Met You,” “Valentine’s Day” and “Dirty Boys” — though “Heroes” makes for a powerful finale. The bonus disc includes Bowie’s recordings of four songs, three previously unavailable.

This is a Broadway cast album that can be appreciated without knowing the story: Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s bluegrass and gospel score works beautifully shorn of the melodramatic book. The spiffy, fiddle-happy arrangements are pure pleasure. The revelation, though, is Carmen Cusack, the show’s once unknown star, whose big numbers (“If You Knew My Story,” “I Had a Vision,” “At Long Last”) announced her as a smashing discovery and a sure bet for other rich Broadway roles in the future.

“It’s like you’re getting a love letter from somebody,” Burt Bacharach, then 85, said of the stripped-down, folked-up 2013 staging of his songbook, conceived with Kyle Riabko and headlined by Mr. Riabko, then 26. After a successful New York run, the show moved to London in 2015, picking up a new title and a new cast of supporting musicians; that’s the version captured on this warm bath of a recording. Mr. Riabko’s skittery guitar and ardent singing remain front and center, his slice-and-dice aesthetic giving new life to pop chestnuts like “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself” and “What the World Needs Now Is Love.”

Resuscitating interest in Off Broadway shows is the point of Encores! Off Center, and this joyous album — which features Jonathan Groff and 15 more minutes of material than on an earlier recording — is a two-disc reminder that William Finn’s 1998 autobiographical musical deserves more life. Mr. Groff is winningly neurotic as a cranky composer facing mortality when hit by a brain malfunction. (Sample song title: “Craniotomy.”) Sweeping ballads like “I”d Rather Be Sailing” and “Heart and Music” have become the show’s standards, but the comic ensemble numbers (including “And They’re Off” and “Gordo’s Law of Genetics”) really make this production sing.